| Revision as of 10:27, 16 February 2008 view sourceRelata refero (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Rollbackers8,630 edits →COI, anon, cabal, content arbcom: better← Previous edit | Revision as of 10:27, 16 February 2008 view source Carcharoth (talk | contribs)Administrators73,579 edits →Wikimedia Foundation non-free image deadline: new sectionNext edit → | ||
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| Jimbo, I made at the talkpage, and wonder if you would be amenable? No content, no addys, no headers, just the dates and times. Thanks. ] (]) 10:15, 16 February 2008 (UTC) | Jimbo, I made at the talkpage, and wonder if you would be amenable? No content, no addys, no headers, just the dates and times. Thanks. ] (]) 10:15, 16 February 2008 (UTC) | ||
| == Wikimedia Foundation non-free image deadline == | |||
| Hi there. Please see: | |||
| *] | |||
| I also wonder if you would be able to advise on the best way to get clarification of the ? The points I've raised concern historical images and some mentions I've seen of a deadline. What I've said over there is as follows:<blockquote>" about this bit of the policy? ''"Such EDPs must be minimal. Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events..."'' - it says right there: ''"to illustrate historically significant events"''. Also, I've seen people say that there is a deadline of "March 23, 2008" to sort all this out, but in fact that deadline is currently written as a subclause of point 6. ie. '''It only applies to projects without an EDP.''' ''"For the projects which currently do not have an EDP in place, the following action shall be taken By March 23, 2008, all existing files under an unacceptable license as per the above must either be accepted under an EDP, or shall be deleted."'' This may just be a mistake in the layout of the Licensing Policy, but if this is so, it needs to be changed ''and the change widely advertised.''"</blockquote> As well as the 'deadline' confusion, my concern is also over historical images. I would be grateful if you could bring these points to the attention of the board if this needs clarification. | |||
| The above was written in August 2007 (the bit about historical images can be ignored for the moment - it is the ''deadline'' that needs clarification at board level) and left , but got no response (as far as I can tell). For obvious reasons, it would be good if you, or other members of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, could comment at the Administrators' noticeboard discussion, or find your way to where-ever the discussion ends up. I've notified the other Board Members where they have en-wiki user pages. ] (]) 10:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC) | |||
Revision as of 10:27, 16 February 2008
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HELP ME
Mr. Wales, can you help me? I am twelve and I am a new Wikipedian. All my teachers hate Misplaced Pages and tell us to use gulp, real encyclopedias! My Wikiholic friend and classmate, Stormtracker94 is with me. Please give me some advice! --Carerra (talk) 23:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jimbo is travelling right now and might not respond right away. I'll respond to keep this thread from being archived, maybe he can comment when he has time.
- It is very important that you learn how to use a real encylopedia, and it is even more important that you learn how to research from lots of sources and make up your own mind whether what they say is true. The world is full of people who want you to believe what they think is right, you have to learn how to tell them all apart and decide for yourself. Don't take the easy way out and just look at Misplaced Pages - look at the "See Also" and "References" and "Further Reading" sections in the articles. Go to those places on the Internet and go to your library and look up the books and read it all for yourself.
- Your teacher just wants you to "learn how to learn", Misplaced Pages is the best starting point in the world but you have to explore past Misplaced Pages and find the truth for yourself. Good luck! Franamax (talk) 23:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Request banned user (I alway enjoy my Ice Cream =)......Meow)
Jimbo, will you please ban I alway enjoy my Ice Cream =)......Meow from Misplaced Pages. This user was blocked for vandalized editing. -- 00:23, February 3, 2008 (UTC)
Hello
Grrrlriot (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Your opinion as the founder of the Misplaced Pages project on WP:FICT issues.
I'm not exactly sure you'll even bother to read this, but I, along with many Misplaced Pages users, wonder what your stance is on fictional topics on Misplaced Pages. The users you've entrusted your project to have essentially done nothing but babble back and forth for months now on what should or shouldn't be included as content on this encyclopedia, while infamous users such as TTN have been going on crusades deleting, trimming and merging hundreds, or possibly thousands of articles citing these controversial guidelines as rules set in stone. Many of these deleted articles are episodes of popular television shows and fictional content, some being formerly Featured Articles such as Bulbasaur or ones that were constantly on the top 100 viewed articles. Most of these article deletions are cited as "okay" since the content is sometimes moved over to horribly maintained and obscure external Wikis such as Wikia. I myself have long stopped being truly involved with Misplaced Pages because of this mindset that so many "powerful" Wikipedians share, but would still enjoy hearing your opinions or seeing a little intervention. - 4.154.237.192 (talk) 18:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- It has been noted by many, that general fiction and cultural-trivia and fancruft collection is the one thing that Misplaced Pages does better than any other source. Not that Misplaced Pages isn't a good information source for other things, but cruft-collection is where it really shines. All of which makes the cruft-killers here on WP a bit bizarre, except for the existance of Wikia, the cruft-hole-that-makes-$. So NOW there's a conflict of interest in getting cruft moved from HERE to THERE. One which has been DEFINED not to be a conflict of interest. Hmmm. SBHarris 18:46, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- The cruft is GFDL-licensed. It can be moved or copied anywhere that complies with the terms of that license—Wikia included. If you'd like to copy the cruft to someplace else as well, you're more than welcome. Heck, ad-supported sites have been mirroring Misplaced Pages content for years(see WP:FORK). You can even take the stuff straight from Wikia; you don't have to catch content while it's on Misplaced Pages.
- Meanwhile, the cruft-killers on Misplaced Pages are not owners of Wikia. They just want the cruft out of the encyclopedia. Whether or not one agrees with their editorial stance is moot—they don't have a conflict of interest, and they don't stand to personally benefit from Misplaced Pages content being copied to Wikia. Don't mistake – or worse, misrepresent – a content disagreement for a conflict of interest. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Don't mistake my argument. Many of the cruft-killers may not stand to financially benefit, but if they want it out of WP, they stand to benefit by the argument that it has another place to go to. If it didn't, it would make their job harder. Meanwhile, the people who do run Wikia have a reason not to stand in the way of it disappearing HERE and reappearing THERE. The copy issue is irrelevent if it's not available in one place, but is in another. You still have to go to the other place and look at the ads to see it. And by the way, not ALL the cruft disappears to GFDL places. Go see Memory alpha for an example of cruft which disappears to a black hole place from whence no commercial re-use is ever allowed. And who profits from that move?
Now, again, don't mistake my argument. I'm sure all Trek fans are happy to have that stuff there, and cruft-killers here are happy to see it gone. BUT, the problem is that once this kind of thing is set as trivia killing precident, we set a bad precident for killing "cruft" or trivia that actually has no place else on the web to go to, because fewer people are fans of it. Once gone from wikipedia, it goes back to whatever newpaper microfiche or musty library stack it came out of originally, and is now unavailable to the rest of us. I saw that happen to bios on supercentinarians, and even some of the people who wrote them were effectively banned. Not good. Especially when we have to suffer through lists of Grand Dukes of Luxembourg and their next-in-succession (groan). SBHarris 20:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Don't mistake my argument. Many of the cruft-killers may not stand to financially benefit, but if they want it out of WP, they stand to benefit by the argument that it has another place to go to. If it didn't, it would make their job harder. Meanwhile, the people who do run Wikia have a reason not to stand in the way of it disappearing HERE and reappearing THERE. The copy issue is irrelevent if it's not available in one place, but is in another. You still have to go to the other place and look at the ads to see it. And by the way, not ALL the cruft disappears to GFDL places. Go see Memory alpha for an example of cruft which disappears to a black hole place from whence no commercial re-use is ever allowed. And who profits from that move?
- Material from Misplaced Pages cannot be copied to a Wikia project that doesn't use a GFDL-compatible license. (If the author of the material on Misplaced Pages chooses to relicense his contributions, he is welcome to. If you would like to invite such authors to contribute their material to other sites as well, you certainly may.) There is no provision for Misplaced Pages administrators, editors, or staff to transfer material to a site with, for example, a non-commercial-use-only license.
- Okay, I see we're going to need a specific example. There once existed on WMF an entire Klingon Misplaced Pages, just like the English one. Except Wiki articles were written in Klingonese. I kid you not. That entire Klingon Misplaced Pages has since been moved to Wikia. . Now, I reject that the entire Klingon Misplaced Pages was the work of one single author when it was hosted by Wikimedia as a Misplaced Pages, but you're free to argue this, if you have info. Otherwise, the thing you said could not happen, obviously did here. Please explain. And by the way, how would you feel if this had happened to the Esperanto Misplaced Pages, another constructed language Misplaced Pages still hosted by WMF ? SBHarris 18:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- As for material that 'has no place else on the web to go'—well, we're not the humane society. WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, nor a blog or webspace provider, nor a file repository. In any case, I'm not sure what the potential loss of some material from the web has to do with your apparently groundless accusations of a conflict of interest. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, well WP:NOT also mentions that WP is WP:NOTPAPER, either, so there’s space for all kinds of information that is verifiable, even if somebody made it up, like fictional works, articles written in Epiranto, or articles written in Klingon (except the latter have been hijacked, as noted). Your “indiscriminate information” is my discriminate information. It’s totally dependent on interest. I have mentioned the painful Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg with its dependent List of Grand Dukes of Luxembourg and Line of succession to the Luxembourgian Throne. All of this existing here because (to borrow a quote from Shrek) royalty makes some folks here, hotter than July (“Ewww…”). The rest of us, to whom royalty is a joke at best and pox on the history of the mankind at worst, just have to roll our eyes. Eww, indeed. But, different strokes for different folks.
Alas, the favor is not returned, for the deletionists have all kinds of rationales for deleting information that doesn’t interest them. Example: Hemoglobin used to have a subarticle created by me, discussing hemoglobin variants about the many genetic polymorphisms of alleles. This medical information was damn well more notable and important to humananity than the line of succession of Luxembourgian Grand Dukes. It got deleted and redirected to the original article before it had time to grow. Now, somebody’s on the hemoglobin TALK page, wondering what’s the difference between tetramer varients and allele varients, and I have no place to direct them. This is/was a case of encyclopedia damage, not failure to find a puppy shelter.
If you want a more whimsical example that I had little to do with, I recently made my one and only (small) contribution to Bokononisms, refering to sayings from an artificial religion created by Kurt Vonnegut for Cat’s Cradle. Somebody noticed this, and proceeded to gut the article, saying the content wasn’t referenced. When I restored it, pointing out that it was, they deleted again, saying it was copyright infringing. When I reverted, they said the material had not only infringment but had notability problems. Basically they just want it GONE, and if one reason won’t do, another will. That’s the battle we fight all the time, here. And if you’re wondering what’s the connection is, to stuff disappearing to Wikia for profit, like the Klingon articles, the answer is that ANYTHING like this, ends up “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” The enemy being people thinking to write an encyclopedia, yet who really cannot empathize with anybody else’s special interests (!). SBHarris 20:07, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, well WP:NOT also mentions that WP is WP:NOTPAPER, either, so there’s space for all kinds of information that is verifiable, even if somebody made it up, like fictional works, articles written in Epiranto, or articles written in Klingon (except the latter have been hijacked, as noted). Your “indiscriminate information” is my discriminate information. It’s totally dependent on interest. I have mentioned the painful Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg with its dependent List of Grand Dukes of Luxembourg and Line of succession to the Luxembourgian Throne. All of this existing here because (to borrow a quote from Shrek) royalty makes some folks here, hotter than July (“Ewww…”). The rest of us, to whom royalty is a joke at best and pox on the history of the mankind at worst, just have to roll our eyes. Eww, indeed. But, different strokes for different folks.
- Material from Misplaced Pages cannot be copied to a Wikia project that doesn't use a GFDL-compatible license. (If the author of the material on Misplaced Pages chooses to relicense his contributions, he is welcome to. If you would like to invite such authors to contribute their material to other sites as well, you certainly may.) There is no provision for Misplaced Pages administrators, editors, or staff to transfer material to a site with, for example, a non-commercial-use-only license.
To claim that[REDACTED] merely does cruft well is to grossly underestimate wikipedia. If I see a problem it is underselling wikipedia, after all 6 times out of 10 its a better search engine than Google or Yahoo. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- No way. Misplaced Pages's search engine per se, sucks. It can't even deal with spelling errors, half the time. To really search Misplaced Pages well, you need to USE Google. They are complimentary. Why do I have to tell you this? SBHarris 20:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Err, I think you are missing my point, it is the content of[REDACTED] that makes it so valuable, and, as someone with a tremendous intellectual curiosity, I don't see any real competitors. Though[REDACTED] clearly does have knowledge holes. If you are criticising the search feature, well, as I said, I think the foundation underestimates what a jewel it has (we've never seen such a user generated product before), and would do well to fortify itself through investment in order to actualise its product in the best way possible. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- SqueakBox , I think I agree with what you are trying to say but are slightly mis-stating. Please see if this is not your intended meaning:
- It is the community that creates the free to copy anywhere content of Misplaced Pages that makes it so valuable, and, as someone with a tremendous intellectual curiosity, I don't see any real competitors. Though[REDACTED] clearly does have knowledge holes. If you are criticising the search feature, well, as I said, I think the foundation underestimates what a jewel it has (we've never seen such a user generated product before), and would do well to fortify itself through investment in order to actualise its product in the best way possible. Thanks.
- I would add to that, that deleting content and moving it to Wikia is an attempt to motivate the community that created that content to abandon[REDACTED] and contribute elsewhere. People will not stay here at[REDACTED] and edit articles they don't care about if the articles they do care about are moved to Wikia. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Oh, and see the talk page of Wikia for some interesting conversation. The latest Wikimedia financial audit written by Wikimedia and approved by an audit firm states that Wikimedia and Wikia share hosting and bandwidth, but that Yahoo used to provide bandwidth as a donation, but no longer does. What the heck is going on? The audit goes out of its way to make clear that Wikia and wikimedia no longer share office space, but on the subject of shared bandwidth and hosting, uses the present tense and says not word about it being discontinued. Further, the report was just finalized and approved a couple days ago, so its not like it is from last year. This is very disturbing. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
For what its worth, I think the entire drive by a minority of editors to feverishly delete or get rid of all the episode articles is just over the top, stupid, and petty. It's a classic example of "I don't like it, or think it has value, so no one will have it." I'd weigh in but that's such a bitter, rancorous pool, like the spoil mess, that I really don't need the aggravation. Lawrence § t/e 17:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Agree with LC, above. . .it's why a lot of editors don't weigh in more often. R. Baley (talk) 17:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- It would perhaps be a less bitter and rancorous pool if the opposition wasn't portrayed so negatively. A lot of those wanting to get rid of many of the current episode articles (and to call them a minority is pure speculation, they don't appear to be a minority of our regular editors anyway) do so because they are convinced that many of these articles violate some policies, and the chance of them improving is quasi nil. These articles are not verifiable by secondary, independent sources, have no indication of notability, and consist mainly of plot summaries (violating WP:NOT and according to some people bordering on copyright violations). Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source, but these articles are mainly secondary sources, based directly on the original episodes and not on what independent, reliable sources have written about them. While in general a list of episodes (or a list per season) may be an acceptable compromise, individual episode articles are overkill (except for those episodes that do have individual notability, as e.g. award winners, first or last of series, or for some controversy). There are many comparable things we don't have articles for, like individual sport games (again with the exception of truly notable ones), individual magazine issues, individual newspaper issues, etcetera. Discussion can be had about where to draw the line, obviously, but if you can't respect the people with a different viewpoint a bit more, it's no wonder that this has become bitter. Fram (talk) 15:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- So help me out here, we are going to keep the Star Trek episode articles, right? Between that and The Simpsons, there's half my look-ups on Misplaced Pages :) Franamax (talk) 23:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That would depend (ultimately) on the number of dedicated editors (at least a small portion must be well versed in policy and guidelines) you have to defend it. R. Baley (talk) 00:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not only to defend it, but to improve the articles as well. To take a random example, an article like Court Martial (Star Trek) is not really an example of what we expect of Misplaced Pages articles. Much too long plot summary, no in line references, no reliable independent sources (one external link is a wiki, the other is not independent). Bt I know that there is tons of reliable published information about Star Trek (books, encyclopedias, nitpickers' guides, etcetera), so I assume that a decent article about each Star Trek episode (at least TOS and TNG, probably the others as well) is possible. But if you want to defend these articles, you (as a group, not Franamax personally) must be willing to make the effort to seriously improve the article as well. The article dates from October 2004, so it's not like there hasn't been time to do so... I personally see no good reason not to redirect such articles to an episode list until a better version is made, but I'm not going to do this until the discussions (ArbCom and so on) are perhaps someday resolved.Fram (talk) 08:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm, that is a good example of an ungood article and it does need to be improved. But does its existence in the current form hurt anything? It does have some utility as it is and presumably gets page views (not sure where to check on that). I'd rather try to improve articles already on my list but still have that one there. It would be a shame to see it vanish under a redirect. Franamax (talk) 08:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- These are always difficult decisions. On the one hand, such articles are of interest to some people (perhaps a lot of people), but on the other hand, they diminish Misplaced Pages's credibility (in their current unsourced or poorly sourced state) and set a poor example (if you can have "that article", then why not article X?). To use a strawman: articles on ponr stars (and certainly well-illustrated articles on porn stars) get lots of page views, but we don't keep them either (unless they have sourced notability). Misplaced Pages must not aim for popularity, but for accuracy. Our aim is wide but not unlimited. To include articles that in their current state fall outside that aim (i.e. articles that fail WP:NOTE or something similar) do not improve Misplaced Pages if you consider it as an encyclopedia, a tertiary source. Of course, articles must first be given the chance to improve if there is a reasonable chance that they can meet our aims, but after a while (like this article), and especially if the problems have been tagged for a while (which at first glance hasn't happened with this article), the reasonable assumption is that either the article can not be improved, or no one at the moment is willing or able to do so, and for that reason, it should be redirected (for episodes and the like) or deleted (for e.g. biographies). This is not definitive though: such articles can be resurrected when the improvements are made. I don't think this is the most popular position to take, but I do believe that it is the best way to maintain the scope and intentions of Misplaced Pages as I understand them. I think this generally is the same as what the disputed guideline WP:EPISODE says, and what the vast majority of users at the Request for comments have said so far. I don't mean to say that your position is incorrect: it is a difference in opinion, and in the end we have the same aspirations (I believe), but the way to get there is in this case different. Fram (talk) 10:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- The thing with that is that Misplaced Pages will never be a scholarly source, so the meer existence of articles like Marth (Fire Emblem) which has been pushed for merge/deletion isn't really hurting Misplaced Pages's "credibility" at all. I don't think anyone would actually discount the merits of well-written Misplaced Pages articles on specifically real-world content just because it also has large bits of info on another subject, the people who don't trust Misplaced Pages generally do so because of its open format and not because it's a wide-scope enyclopedia. As long as a fiction article is informative without being a total plot summary on the larger subject, and is written from an objective point of view, it isn't hurting the enyclopedia's credibility at all. - 4.156.54.235 (talk) 23:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- These are always difficult decisions. On the one hand, such articles are of interest to some people (perhaps a lot of people), but on the other hand, they diminish Misplaced Pages's credibility (in their current unsourced or poorly sourced state) and set a poor example (if you can have "that article", then why not article X?). To use a strawman: articles on ponr stars (and certainly well-illustrated articles on porn stars) get lots of page views, but we don't keep them either (unless they have sourced notability). Misplaced Pages must not aim for popularity, but for accuracy. Our aim is wide but not unlimited. To include articles that in their current state fall outside that aim (i.e. articles that fail WP:NOTE or something similar) do not improve Misplaced Pages if you consider it as an encyclopedia, a tertiary source. Of course, articles must first be given the chance to improve if there is a reasonable chance that they can meet our aims, but after a while (like this article), and especially if the problems have been tagged for a while (which at first glance hasn't happened with this article), the reasonable assumption is that either the article can not be improved, or no one at the moment is willing or able to do so, and for that reason, it should be redirected (for episodes and the like) or deleted (for e.g. biographies). This is not definitive though: such articles can be resurrected when the improvements are made. I don't think this is the most popular position to take, but I do believe that it is the best way to maintain the scope and intentions of Misplaced Pages as I understand them. I think this generally is the same as what the disputed guideline WP:EPISODE says, and what the vast majority of users at the Request for comments have said so far. I don't mean to say that your position is incorrect: it is a difference in opinion, and in the end we have the same aspirations (I believe), but the way to get there is in this case different. Fram (talk) 10:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm, that is a good example of an ungood article and it does need to be improved. But does its existence in the current form hurt anything? It does have some utility as it is and presumably gets page views (not sure where to check on that). I'd rather try to improve articles already on my list but still have that one there. It would be a shame to see it vanish under a redirect. Franamax (talk) 08:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not only to defend it, but to improve the articles as well. To take a random example, an article like Court Martial (Star Trek) is not really an example of what we expect of Misplaced Pages articles. Much too long plot summary, no in line references, no reliable independent sources (one external link is a wiki, the other is not independent). Bt I know that there is tons of reliable published information about Star Trek (books, encyclopedias, nitpickers' guides, etcetera), so I assume that a decent article about each Star Trek episode (at least TOS and TNG, probably the others as well) is possible. But if you want to defend these articles, you (as a group, not Franamax personally) must be willing to make the effort to seriously improve the article as well. The article dates from October 2004, so it's not like there hasn't been time to do so... I personally see no good reason not to redirect such articles to an episode list until a better version is made, but I'm not going to do this until the discussions (ArbCom and so on) are perhaps someday resolved.Fram (talk) 08:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- That would depend (ultimately) on the number of dedicated editors (at least a small portion must be well versed in policy and guidelines) you have to defend it. R. Baley (talk) 00:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- So help me out here, we are going to keep the Star Trek episode articles, right? Between that and The Simpsons, there's half my look-ups on Misplaced Pages :) Franamax (talk) 23:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
WP Logo
Mr Wales,
The Misplaced Pages Logo has the wrong Hindi alphabet. I think this issue has been brought up before. When will it be fixed?
Hope to make Misplaced Pages better Σαι ( Talk) 12:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- There was an article in the New York Times about it. According to the article the person who made the logo lost the original computer file and is too busy to start from scratch. Jon513 (talk) 13:02, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I need to register to see that? Can someone give me the text? Σαι ( Talk) 10:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- this may help. Jon513 (talk) 14:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I need to register to see that? Can someone give me the text? Σαι ( Talk) 10:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks. there was an article in the Indian newspaper Eenadu Eenadu not long ago. I guess until someone with some time on their hands comes around this will be like this. :( Σαι ( Talk) 16:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
If a well-known gramatically incorrect logo cannot be fixed after nearly a year of Misplaced Pages being aware of it, what hope can there be? Hope is the driving force behind Misplaced Pages failure. ☯ Zenwhat (talk) 16:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, Zenwhat, stop trolling, ok?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Could we not just very carefully replace the characters in a paint program? I'm good with this sort of stuff. Does anybody object to me giving it a go and making a test? • Anakin 21:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hello Jimbo, and others watching this page :-). I gave it a go. Compare Image:Misplaced Pages-logo.png and Image:Misplaced Pages-logo-fix-test.png. The new characters look a bit distorted but I think it's just because they're an unfamiliar shape anyway. I can tweak it of course. Is it an improvement? • Anakin 22:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I heard that this error is actually a good thing because it signifies the fact that not everything in Misplaced Pages is true; it is natural that the logo contains errors. -- Taku (talk) 22:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- True, true. But fixing it signifies that we fix errors when we find them. Even if Misplaced Pages will always contain errors, there's no reason not to try to make it perfect. • Anakin 01:24, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman
Do I understand correctly that you still retain the ability to dissolve the present ArbCom and hold new elections? —Random832 15:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe so, yes. I think the ArbCom would support me in that notion as well. However, the chances of me doing that are vanishingly close to zero. It's a useful safety valve in case of a major major problem, but not something I have any interest in doing. The power of our traditions rests primarily in them being sane, and their use being sane.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Do you consider the Arbitration Committee's actions in the above-named case, by which an administrator ("Vanished User" refers to this person throughout, if you wish to review the case) has been driven away from the site and the community's input has been completely ignored for no apparent reason other than it not having been the outcome Uninvited Company wanted, to be "sane"? If you haven't been following it closely enough to know what the issue is, I can try to put together a summary sometime this week. —Random832 21:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've separated out Zenwhat's comment below, so that Jimbo can reply to Random if he wants to. For what it is worth, though I was effectively one of those that helped to "bring the case" in the Matthew Hoffman arbitration case, but I share some of the concerns raised in various places. For example: Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman/Proposed decision#Regarding the explanation from UninvitedCompany and User talk:UninvitedCompany#Matthew Hoffman case. I think the Arbitration Committee have learnt from this themselves about how not to do things in future, but it might help if you checked in with them yourself to find out exactly what happened. Carcharoth (talk) 22:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I disagreed with my colleagues' disposition of the Matthew Hoffman case as well as with a remedy that was adopted in another recently closed, prominent case. However, I am extremely confident that in each case, the majority voted for the outcome they believed was in the best interests of the project and the contributor base as a whole, and I respectfully do not believe that the suggestion of dissolving the committee based on disagreement with a particular decision is a constructive one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with Newyorkbrad that dissolving the committee as a whole is UNwarranted. However, I have some very serious concerns, which are clearly shared by others including Carcharoth, MastCell and Random832. At present I am very seriously considering initiating a user RfC on one or more ArbCom members to determine whether the community wants to register its dissent, or even to declare they lack confidence in the judgement of one or more Committee members. As Newyorkbrad indicates, opinions can differ and ArbCom members are entitled to reasonable discretion. The question for me is whether some member(s) have gone beyond what the community believes are reasonable bounds on that discretion, and if so, whether this has undermined the confidence in those Committee members seriously enough for further action to be warranted. EdChem (talk) 02:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC) Note: changed warranted to UNwarranted once I noticed this mistake. Apologies for not re-reading carefully earlier. EdChem (talk) 07:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm seriously troubled, upset, and disappointed by a number of aspects in the handling of this case from start to finish. I've elaborated elsewhere and won't repeat myself here. I do think that it's not right to beat up on UninvitedCompany - after all, he was one of the few Arbs willing to share his thought process and invite questions, a considerate step which he was not obligated to take. I think the Committee does an excellent job in general, despite my very profound objections to the handling of this particular case, and I don't think an RfC would be appropriate or fruitful at this point. Nor would an unprecedented step like dissolving the Committee (though I do wish the Committee as a whole seemed to have a bit more accountability when cases like this arise). I'd rather try to understand if I'm missing something fundamental in my understanding of the case. Assuming I'm not, then I'd be much more comfortable if there was at least some acknowledgement that this case was an aberration and that its more disturbing features would not be repeated - but of course, making me comfortable is not Misplaced Pages's or the Committee's primary function. :) MastCell 04:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I've watched over 30 arbitration cases unfold. The Matthew Hoffman case was the worst handled one I've ever seen, and that includes my own. Durova 07:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Indeed, I'm surprised the ArbCom has managed to reduce my respect for them as a collective to zero. It was already extraordinarily low after (some event I probably can't mention without being accused of trolling), but this is a serious problem. I suppose there's nothing to do other than add my name to the pile of "The community is unhappy" voices. WilyD 13:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think to be fair with the diversity of opinions on the current committee and the nature of the case, some of the mess was inevitable. However I think dissolving the committee is a bit extreme (perhaps leaning on them to drop the case, which IMO should have been done a long while ago, would however be productive). I tend to agree with MastCell in general above. Orderinchaos 12:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- The option of "leaning on them to drop the case" has left the building, it closed yesterday. —Random832 15:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Keeping in mind that those who disagree with a ruling may be more vocal in complaining than those who are satisfied are likely to praise it, I do not agree with those who think the ArbCom handled this case badly. The now vanished user violated policies and abused admin privileges, per the now final decision; suggesting that the ArbCom did their jobs badly because they bent over backwards to make accommodations to the vanished user is really unfair to them. —Whig (talk) 17:21, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- That probably would be unfair to the Committee, if anyone were actually arguing that. I'm certainly not. The issue is not whether the admin in question made some bad blocks (he did); the issues have to do with how the case was processed, accepted, and disposed. This was formulated as a test case - to paraphrase Voltaire, the idea was to desysop one admin with prejudice pour encourager les autres - and the processing of the case, at least initially, suggests that the Committee saw it as such. The handling of this case sends a number of damaging and demoralizing messages, which I'm far more concerned about than the fate of the admin in question's sysop bit. MastCell 17:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree it sends an important message to admins to be responsible with their sysop bit. I hope that message resonates. —Whig (talk) 18:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is not the message it sends at all. WilyD 19:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- As an alternative to completely dissolving the committee and holding another election, I would like to suggest this: a reconfirmation election for UninvitedCompany and Charles Matthews (since these were the two arbitrators whose actions seem to be the primary issue here); to be replaced (if they are not reconfirmed) by two new arbitrators chosen at Jimbo's discretion from those who received at least 50% in the December 2007 election but were not appointed at that time. —Random832 19:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll confess I'm a bit puzzled here (though I have not been in the details). UC was one of several arbitrators active on this case, who collectively reached a certain decision. Even if he/she was an advocate for a certain position, part of the reason we have a multiple member arbcom is so that any potential individual biases are mitigated. Charles Matthews brought forward a case and correctly recused himself from being an arbitrator in it: you might claim he should not have brought the case (but it was accepted by the committee...) or that he could have been more civil in discussing it in his role as a party to the case (but we have seen much worse from arbcom case participants...) but I fail to see any rationale for reconfirmation/recall. Martinp (talk) 20:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- My impression was that UninvitedCompany was largely considered responsible for the direction the committee took in ignoring the outcome of the RFC. Was I incorrect? As for Charles Matthews, I think both the extreme lack of decorum and, more to the point, the committee's bizarre (yes, bizarre. What's the point of a recusal if everyone else is just going to close ranks anyway?) reluctance to examine his behavior mean that it should be looked at instead by the community as a whole; arbitrators are supposed to set an example, and even though his behavior here was not strictly as an arbitrator, his behavior still has an effect on the credibility of arbcom itself. —Random832 22:04, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll confess I'm a bit puzzled here (though I have not been in the details). UC was one of several arbitrators active on this case, who collectively reached a certain decision. Even if he/she was an advocate for a certain position, part of the reason we have a multiple member arbcom is so that any potential individual biases are mitigated. Charles Matthews brought forward a case and correctly recused himself from being an arbitrator in it: you might claim he should not have brought the case (but it was accepted by the committee...) or that he could have been more civil in discussing it in his role as a party to the case (but we have seen much worse from arbcom case participants...) but I fail to see any rationale for reconfirmation/recall. Martinp (talk) 20:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Now that the case ended and Vanished User has left the building, I'll point out another flaw in this proceeding: the ruling didn't actually prohibit the community from readminning this editor. Compare the wording of this case's remedy to previous arbitration desysoppings. Vanished User's supporters knew they had the numbers, thanks to the well attended RFC. An RFA would have been an open challenge to the Committee and a reminder of where their mandate springs from. Durova 20:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I see that as less of a flaw and more of a hat tipping to the fact that there were extenuating circumstances here with regards to inappropriate tool use. A probable corollary is that rather than deal with both the tool use and the circumstances, they chose to deal with only the tool use, which could easily be framed within the letter of the laws, and not the other circumstances, which would require consideration of the spirit as well.
- But in any case, I think this recall talk dramafodder should be dropped. The scope of their improving the encyclopedia is merely to make sure the rules are enforced. Yes they punted on the more pressing but longer term problem, but if Jimbo wishes to comment on that, I am sure he will. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 21:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not so sure the community would re-admin this user in any case, and recalling specific Arbs on the basis of their role in one poor decision seems like a bad precedent. I think the bottom line is that a number of people were horrified/disappointed/deeply dismayed by how this case was handled from start to finish, and there is really no outlet for that. I don't think that resysopping the user in question would fix things, nor am I convinced it would be a good idea. I'd be happy if the Committee, or rather certain elements of it, would acknowledge that they'd be more circumspect regarding special treatment the next time an angry Arbitrator brings a case, and disown the notion of turning valued editors into "test cases". Since that appears vanishingly unlikely, I think all that can be done is to file this one away and move on. MastCell 21:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I offered to nom Vanished User, and he declined. This probably only indicates he's a wiser man than I. WilyD 23:04, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
...the other option...
...being that Jimmy Wales can nullify the decision in that case. "The Arbitration Committee can impose a solution that I'll consider to be binding, with of course the exception that I reserve the right of executive clemency" — clemency, my dear friends, being a way to resolve this with less disruption should Jimmy Wales agree with most of what has been said above.
Now, for the record, I a) don't have any interest in this case beyond the general interest I have in the arbitration policy, b) hence, do not know whether clemency would be warranted or ideal; I do not support or oppose it based on the fact that I know too little about the case, c) have only ever suggested this once before, directly and privately to Jimmy, so it's not as if I'm dedicated to pushing for clemency wherever possible, d) have no idea whether Jimmy is even sharing the belief that this case was not handled satisfactorally.
Basically, I think that this would be generally less disruptive than a dissolution, although I have no idea whether it's warranted, likely, or otherwise. Daniel (talk) 05:01, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Please answer me one thing
How could you? Cool Hand Luke 09:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jimbo, did you really admit that Gary Weiss was Mantanmoreland five months ago? If so, you've let this situation fester all this time, wasting hundreds of hours of our time and threatening the credibility of this freaking project you've set up that so many of us spend so much of our time trying to make work? I know what I want to ask of you next, but I'm going to wait for your answer before I ask it, because it will be a serious request. In fact, I'm going to bold this to make sure you see it...Did you admit that Gary Weiss was Mantanmoreland on 9/15/2007? Cla68 (talk) 10:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Cla, he said he thought they were the same, but didn't want to act unless there was proof. Perhaps you want to rephrase the question? Relata refero (talk) 12:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- According to the post, here are his exact words, "I just want to go on record as saying that I believe the reason for this is that Mantanmoreland is in fact Gary Weiss." I'm giving him a chance to explain this remark before I comment further. Cla68 (talk) 12:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Cla, he said he thought they were the same, but didn't want to act unless there was proof. Perhaps you want to rephrase the question? Relata refero (talk) 12:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
As near as I can tell, the situation is this: One POV side was careful to be nice to all the right people while the other side was careful to be as insulting as possible to all the right people (including vicious libelous attacks on Jimbo that have now been deleted on a site they control). The cabal rallied around the nice guys. The nice guys then proceeded to use their position to make certain articles POV, but not so much that the cabal would care. Meanwhile, the bad guys launch sock after sock after sock, so the cabal stops even trying to be fair and simply views anyone with the same POV as the bad side as a sock. Thus is born the thought crime and how doing battle on[REDACTED] creates sides. But in the end both sides need to be banned. One side was just so nice (100s of emails to the right people says Guy) that some still make excuses. Well, stand aside those of you who have befriended either side and let the community decide. WAS 4.250 (talk) 12:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think this is a fair representation of what has happened. There is a fringe conspiracy theory here, one which is not reflected in reliable sources, and refusing to allow paid corporate POV pushers to control an article because they have a willingness to engage in "dirty tricks" campaigns is always going to be the right thing to do. The article, when I have looked at it (not recently) seemed to be quite good to me, whereas the version proposed by the other side was not even remotely close to ok.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
(reposting from ANI and RFC) I've written to Jimbo and asked him for comment. He's traveling this week and may not be available to post onsite before Friday. I've reread the entire thread where that brief excerpt came from, and the context is about the difference between proof and hunch. It's possible to have a stong hunch without actually being right (cough). So let's not get too furious at Jimbo for being wiser in September than I was in November. Durova 12:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- And for Was 4.250: the policy is assume good faith. One side had conclusively violated policy and - to speak only for myself - I extended good faith toward the other because that was possible and plausible. It's still possible, but I'm concerned about plausible and I'm worried that someone may have played upon my goodwill and the goodwill of others. That's why I've been sticking my neck out these last several days. Likewise, I'm concerned that this e-mail disclosure was selected out of context to feed your worst suspicions. See contextomy. Durova 14:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- We assume good faith when we lack evidence, not when we have overwhelming evidence. Until this latest effort, AGF made sense for all the reasons pointed out; except that there was a freakin two year war on and off[REDACTED] and it would have been prudent to initiate an investigation like this back at least a year ago to see if there was fire under all that smoke or not. Constantly blocking/banning people who warn about a friend of the cabal having a COI is damaging to the community and our credibility. The cabal have got to stop their warfare on people who agree with their enemies on some issue. Thought crime must no longer be a block-able offense. WAS 4.250 (talk) 14:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't like what I see here either, but cabal and thought crime? Try Wikipedian. Think back to when Runcorn/Poetlister got banned - two great editors wrapped into one. The socking wasn't endorsed or winked at; people just had doubts that took a while to prove. Durova 18:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, you're right about my choice of terminology. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't like what I see here either, but cabal and thought crime? Try Wikipedian. Think back to when Runcorn/Poetlister got banned - two great editors wrapped into one. The socking wasn't endorsed or winked at; people just had doubts that took a while to prove. Durova 18:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- We assume good faith when we lack evidence, not when we have overwhelming evidence. Until this latest effort, AGF made sense for all the reasons pointed out; except that there was a freakin two year war on and off[REDACTED] and it would have been prudent to initiate an investigation like this back at least a year ago to see if there was fire under all that smoke or not. Constantly blocking/banning people who warn about a friend of the cabal having a COI is damaging to the community and our credibility. The cabal have got to stop their warfare on people who agree with their enemies on some issue. Thought crime must no longer be a block-able offense. WAS 4.250 (talk) 14:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I didn't make myself clear. I'm not suggesting that you knew or admitted you were certain that he was Weiss. The reason I am outraged is that respected admins—including you—suspected it, but sat idly by as inquiries into Mantanmoreland and Samiharris were suppressed. (Suppressed, incidentally, by some of those same respected admins.) At to make myself even more clear: Wordbomb was justly banned, but when legitimate editors like Cla68 raised the question, the appropriate response was to look into it, not bury it and ban those who would oppose. Cool Hand Luke 15:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I am unaware of any suppression of any inquiries. I am unaware of any bans of anyone under the circumstances you mention. My actions have been limited to conducting an investigation into an allegation, and finding no persuasive evidence. As I have said elsewhere, the idea that someone was given a free pass for being a friend is nonsense. I don't even like Mantanmoreland, and have found him to be difficult or impossible to interact with. Nonetheless, it is true that I don't ban people just because I don't like them, nor do we ban people due to being the victim of stalkers. It is important to understand that there is some extreme POV pushing going on in this case, and much unsavory "sleuthing" has taken place to try to "out" Mantanmoreland. It's all rubbish if you ask me, but in any event here we are. If you can show me an example of "bury it and ban those who would oppose" I encourage you to file an ArbCom case about it. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not expecting a reply as the case is ongoing, but "persuasive evidence" may have been around since 2006. For all the talk of recent days about who doesn't believe who is who and who isn't, perhaps there was a smoking gun after all Whitstable 19:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Jimbo: Cla68 is more familiar with the history of this case, so I defer "suppression" evidence to his section of the RFAR evidence. Incidentally, he cites Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Gary Weiss. Do you suppose this could be undeleted for the duration of the arbitration? Cool Hand Luke 01:41, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Thread involving you on AN/I
Just to let you know out of courtesy, there is a discussion involving you on AN/I. Thanks Whitstable 13:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Mantanmoreland. Thanks, SqueakBox 01:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
BLP guideline
Hi, Jimbo, a question: does BLP apply to articles about groups of living people as well as just living people themselves? Will 01:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- Tricky question. Generally the category and templates are only used for specific articles with the name of a living person in the title, but there are exceptions made when there are BLP related concerns. A singing group composed of two people, an article about a family are examples where BLP is very much an important consideration. The more people, the less any one will be affected by a claim about the group as a whole: Articles about the United States, about IBM, about a small village are in no way BLP articles. But on any page, not just in articles, a claim about any single named living person is subject to the BLP policy. The singing group the Beatles is an excellent example of a group that is exactly in the middle between being covered and not being covered by our BLP policy. WAS 4.250 (talk) 01:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- The reason I'm asking the question is because BLP is half-legal, half-ethical. I would assume that groups would find it easier to sue for libel than individuals. I don't think the Beatles is a good example, as George and John are dead - perhaps a band such as Green Day would serve for that comparison? Will 02:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- And any material that will affect the livelihood or reputation of the individuals should surely be subject to BLP, eg accusations of room-trashing (a typical accusation against certain rock stars historically) by a band should surely be the subject of BLP re the members of the band. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- For the legal issue of libel use our WP:LIBEL policy rather than WP:BLP. WAS 4.250 (talk) 04:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- By the by, IBM is a legal person and probably entitled to BLP-style protection, if at least from the legal half. WilyD 13:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- It may well be a legal person in US and other legal jurisdictions but I don't believe that entitles it to BLP protection, certainly not as BLP is currently defined, and IMO to impose such a policy whereby large corporations such as Microsoft and IBM are entitled to the same kind of protection as individuals re our BLP policy would be controversial to say the least, but anyway shoudl be discussed at the policy's talk page. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
a fringing big THANK YOU
Hey Jimbo,
I would just like to thank you very much for looking deaper into the fring article and bring it back to life. When I wrote that article (article number 8) I really couldnt see why it got deleted. I understood the previous attempts by previous guys because it looked like advertising but I really attempted to do it according to all the rules and yet it still got deleted, I felt the system had a big hole in it and you have given me confidence in[REDACTED] again. The wheel is big but it does eventually turn around and I was amazed that the founder would take the time out of hi busy schedule to add his comment.
Thank you
I send you warm regards from South Africa
ps. When you are in SA again let me know, I missed your last visit sorry.
Regards
Simon
Goplett (talk) 20:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland
An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland/Workshop.
On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, — Rlevse • Talk • 23:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Constant attack of Hungarian users and Hungarians on Misplaced Pages (Eastern Europe series vol. 2, or more)
Romania and Slovakia has large Hungarian minorities, whom are constantly attacked in real life (for ex. Hedvig Malina, 2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs, etc.) and also online.
Tons of disruptive users are out there, like User:Roamataa (Romanian, deleting every Hungarian word and placename in Transsylvania related articles (choose any), despite that it was part of Hungary for more than a 1000 (thousand) years, and still 1.5 million Hungarians are living there, and many place are haveing Hungarian majority, and centuries of Hungarian history, etc. User:Svetovid: Same, just change Romania to Slovakia, see only his block log, and the related edits. It talks for itself, and it says everything I want to explain and show and present. User:Tankred the same, etc. etc. dozens of similar users, some are as long here, and playing these dirty games, as of 2004. There are also a much smaller in number, but same agressive Serbian version of them, they are especially active on Vojvodina related articles. Common in them is their same level (high) agressiveness, massive edit warring on multiple pages, and deletion of Hungarian placenames and words from Misplaced Pages's articles, mainly in articles dealing with the Carpathian Basin's history and any of its former and present countries' histories, and in those articles wich are dealing with places once were within the Kingdom of Hungary (practically is within the Carpathian Basin) and eventually calling all of these words and placenames etc. mere existence a Hungarian (nationalist/irredentist) POV, as well as any/every Hungarian source for anything.
Not to mention those ppl's articles (for ex. Franz Liszt), whom were born (and/or died also) in the Kingdom of Hungary, but outside of present day Hungary, before the Treaty of Trianon. No matter that many of them lived well before the existence of Czecoslovakia or Slovakia, or never ever lived in that state(s) wich now claims them, there are always constant and never ending attempts to show anyone possible as Slovak/Romanian/Serb/etc. here, despite of their true (Hungarian) ethnicity, or their own claims, or the fact, that they never ever lived in those states, and/or they never considered themselfs serbs/slovaks/etc. Modern times' famous or well known ppl. from the Hungarian minority of these new or expanded states are also victims of Slovakization, Romanianization or Serbisation. For example there was many attemts to show Monica Seles as if she was Serb or Yugoslav (, , etc.) She gained hungarian citizenship next to her american in 2007 June, but it is constantly getting deleted (, , etc.), despite many sources. - Funny thing, that User:Tennis expert even deleted the statement copied from Monika Seles's biggest and oldest fan-webpage's (and be sure, they know EVERYTHING abt MS) had appaled (and obtained) Hungarian citizenship. But this may be a mere different story, and he's not anti-Hungarian, just a semi-troll or what.
Almost 9 out of ten Hungarian users here were at least once probed for sockpuppetry, also at least a dozen left the project just in 2007. These constant attacks on Hungarians should be somehow "finished" once and for all. --91.82.32.54 (talk) 02:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Why the "sinister" Caltrop is on WikiBreak.
Ya just can't be thin-skinned and edit for years on Misplaced Pages.
Nonetheless, I'll be taking a wikibreak (like you or anyone should care) over a teapot tempest stirred up by my honorable colleague Prodego (a completely unknown person to me) over my "sinister" talk page deletions. I have been here since NuPedia. Mea culpa: I've been deleting my boring User Talk page every so often for years. Someone pointed out that I should not. I tried (with help from the IRC team) to bring it back and archive it. It became a horrible mess. Now I am being beleaguered by well-meaning blinkered bureaucrats. I tell you, it makes me hate the place. It's getting like MIT, IBM or the world of Brazil (movie) here for me.
Years of service and $$$ donations brought to a depressing and depressed standstill. Vandalism and pedantic battles do not bother me as much as the inferno of having to work in an online nightmare. Should you care? Is this systemic? No. Misplaced Pages is one of the most important projects ever created and it will succeed and grow stronger. I have never written to you about anything ever, but now I am infected with a dread of even logging on for fear of seeing "New Messages". Thanks for listening. Caltrop (talk) 02:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- Should you be interested in this Jimbo, please read WP:AN#Caltrop's talk page: Forced merge and restoration appropriate?. Prodego 03:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages:Delegable proxy
Hello, after reading your comments here, I thought you might be interested in the delegable proxy (aka liquid democracy) proposal Abd and I have been working on. This is a system in which people can appoint their own personal representatives. The first step will be to get people to start signing up at the proxy table; then an automated tool can be used to conduct analyses, or it can even be copied into a spreadsheet and combined with other info to make pivottables from which useful insights can be made. The possibilities are endless. Ron Duvall (talk) 03:59, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
GNU/Linux
Congratulations! With your comment you started a war edit on multiple Linux related pages. Maybe you should just rule what the content of Misplaced Pages should be and end the war, what do you say? Please be a man and comment on Talk:Linux not on users talk pages. Thanks. -- AdrianTM (talk) 13:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for posting a message on Talk:Linux about this issue. Sorry that my call was impertinent and assholic, I was a bit peeved because of the edit wars that started following your stating an opinion. -- AdrianTM (talk) 04:28, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Talk to admins
I'd like to suggest a new feature for Misplaced Pages. Yesterday some of my pages were deleted accidentally cos I was using some templates which were deleted. I then had to talk to the admin who deleted the pages and so on. What I'd say is to have a page called Talk to Admin where you can post your questions and any admin who is online at that time will be able to solve the problem. That'd be better won't it be? Σαι ( Talk) 14:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think you're looking for the Administrator's noticeboard Nakon 14:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Nupedia (etymology)
Hello Jimmy
According to Misplaced Pages, Larry coined the name Misplaced Pages (probably coined after Nupedia "New encyclopædia" I imagine) but it is not said who coined the name Nupedia. Do you have the answer to this question? 16@r (talk) 16:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
How information circulates
A prominent and respected newspaper in Germany maintains this web page. At the bottom it says:
- Dieser Artikel basiert auf dem Artikel Nena aus der freien Enzyklopädie Misplaced Pages und steht unter der GNU-Lizenz für freie Dokumentation. In der Misplaced Pages ist eine Liste der Autoren verfügbar.
and you can click on "Liste der Autoren" and find who wrote what (if not their real names, but my own edits are under my real name). The very first sentence on the newspaper's web page is not the first sentence in the Misplaced Pages article, but occurs later in the article:
- Gabriele Susanne Kerner ist in Breckerfeld geboren und in Hagen aufgewachsen.
That sentence was written by me. It goes against the somewhat conventional wisdom that says she was born in Hagen. My statement about a celebrity who is universally known in Germany, where I've never been, and not so well known here to the left of the Pond, written by a person who needs dictionaries to write such a sentence in German, was the resource put on its web site by a major newspaper in Germany. Consequently I felt a certain sense of responsibility and thought I should check the facts more closely. My initial attempt in that direction resulted in someone in Germany telling me there's a web site where I could get authoritative information, and it was that newspaper web page where I was the author of the initial sentence.
That's how information gets around.
I may have solid information soon, and then I will edit the Misplaced Pages article accordingly and contact that newspaper.
How do you like that? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- Amazing. It's a small world :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 21:53, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
COI, anon, cabal, content arbcom
Jimbo, above you said:
- "I don't think this is a fair representation of what has happened. The article, when I have looked at it (not recently) seemed to be quite good to me, whereas the version proposed by the other side was not even remotely close to ok.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)"
I want you to notice that here you are making a content decision in order to judge COI in order to decide whether or not a public discussion of a possible real world identity should take place. This sort of thing is obviously needed when[REDACTED] values both NPOV (so we have to watch out for COI) and anonymous editing (so we have to not take outing lightly). The problem I see in this case is that the sock war has resulted in public claims (e.g. in letters published by the SEC that are against both sides in the[REDACTED] war) that the articles have been biased by banning socks on the basis of the content they wished to add to the articles; resulting in the question of who at[REDACTED] should be evaluating the content of these articles for NPOV. We do not have a content arbcom. I think we should move in the direction of having an academically based one. It is policy that the community decides content, not a cabal. Yet, when a few people talk privately in order to avoid public discussion of a real world identity and that private group takes it upon itself to define NPOV for some articles in order to decide a COI question, then we have in fact a cabal making itself a content arbcom for those articles. It occurs to me that, since we have a de facto content arbcom when real life identities are involved, we need some sort of check&balance. For example, instead of saying "seemed to be quite good to me" suppose you were able to say "I asked a favor of two university professors who are experts in these articles to review the articles for bias (and accuracy, if they had time) and both thought it was a neutral presentation and said so on the talk page using their real names". I think we need to move in the direction of using real life experts for content arbitration in those few cases that cause huge problems. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- I came here to respond to exactly the above statement, which User:Mantanmoreland has linked to in his defence.
- I encourage you to read my evidence on here. I think you'll see where the problem lies, and why you were, not to put too fine a point on it, mistaken. Relata refero (talk) 10:25, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
controversial ban
I Jimbo. Once again, I am asking you to (at least) take a look at this. This claim by admin User:Thatcher131 was disproved here. But the user is still blocked indef. Other checkuser requests show that no other sockpuppet was used. Neither after the ban, nor before the ban. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.132.236 (talk) 02:56, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
re Mantanmoreland ArbCom
Jimbo, I made this suggestion at the talkpage, and wonder if you would be amenable? No content, no addys, no headers, just the dates and times. Thanks. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:15, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation non-free image deadline
Hi there. Please see:
I also wonder if you would be able to advise on the best way to get clarification of the Foundation Licensing policy? The points I've raised here concern historical images and some mentions I've seen of a deadline. What I've said over there is as follows:
" about this bit of the policy? "Such EDPs must be minimal. Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events..." - it says right there: "to illustrate historically significant events". Also, I've seen people say that there is a deadline of "March 23, 2008" to sort all this out, but in fact that deadline is currently written as a subclause of point 6. ie. It only applies to projects without an EDP. "For the projects which currently do not have an EDP in place, the following action shall be taken By March 23, 2008, all existing files under an unacceptable license as per the above must either be accepted under an EDP, or shall be deleted." This may just be a mistake in the layout of the Licensing Policy, but if this is so, it needs to be changed and the change widely advertised."
As well as the 'deadline' confusion, my concern is also over historical images. I would be grateful if you could bring these points to the attention of the board if this needs clarification.
The above was written in August 2007 (the bit about historical images can be ignored for the moment - it is the deadline that needs clarification at board level) and left here, but got no response (as far as I can tell). For obvious reasons, it would be good if you, or other members of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, could comment at the Administrators' noticeboard discussion, or find your way to where-ever the discussion ends up. I've notified the other Board Members where they have en-wiki user pages. Carcharoth (talk) 10:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)